Resting On Laurels Is Hardly Enough

Look at Step Ten. If you think I mean read the summary of Step Ten off the Twelve Steps shades hanging on the wall or what can be gleaned off of page 59 — I do not.

I mean read the directions for taking Step Ten. They are on page 84 followed by some unbelievably wonderful promises to be had as the result.

Now, here’s where some life changing challenges comes in. We begin to see that practicing these principles in all of our affairs is much more than a week or month long spurt of 4th step inventory writing and an afternoon of fifth step talking.

It means changing the way we approach our daily lives – moment by moment and day by day. It takes commitment – a commitment that is not so hard for those of us who have by now felt a miracle and are experiencing a new flow of power into our lives. We have come to believe and making drastic changes is now possible where before it was not. But it can be impossibly difficult for anyone who has not taken the previous steps and consequently begun to have the spiritual experience promised.

People who “take the steps” through AWOL programs or by reading the 12 & 12 may not get the powerful new flow of Gods grace. If they do, it seems short-lived.

There is no continued growth in effectiveness They “wait”. And they “wait”. And they “wait”. And they read. And they read. And they read. And they discuss. And they discuss. And then they argue over what a spiritual awakening is. Attempting to living off of a spiritual experience had years or months ago is not growth. It’s resting on laurels. And for real alcoholics it is deadly.

There are thousands of us out there going to Big Book meetings, and Twelve and Twelve meetings – reading Twelve and Twelve essays, the stories in the back of the Big Book – who are so self centered that we have resorted to turning Dr. O. into a demigod and page 449/417 into a mantra for feeling good. Many of us would rather savor some of the fine insights of someone like Emmet Fox than perform daily Step Ten exercises throughout the day and engage in nightly inventories as prescribed in the Twelve Steps.

We think that we have the AA Program in our lives. And we don’t. And we lie about it to others.

We rubber-stamp our half-assed actions with “to the best of our abilities” and it isn’t. And we are still crazy – still suffering from the slings and arrows that life shoots at us, still have financial fears and worries and are telling newcomers that, “This Program Works” when it is apparently that for many of us it isn’t.

But we have an inspection sticker on the car and a job and so we brag – as if these have been fruit that matters of sobriety. To the newcomer without a sticker, or a car for that matter, this seems an improvement over his own lot – and for a spell we are attractive – until the next first drink hits that newcomer like a freight train hits a stalled car on the track.

Then we tell him, “You must not have really wanted sobriety” or to “Double up on your meetings.”

We are full of shit!

And so we figure it must be some lifelong, never quite get there, hardly noticeable but it must be so experience. Let’s go with spiritual experiences of the educational variety – yeah, that’s the ticket. And then we continue to struggle and fight through life. If we are real alcoholics we will probably relapse and come back – and relapse and come back over and over. If we are not real alcoholics we might stay dry and crazy and figure we must be recoverING because we have been attending all these dammed meetings and haven’t had a drink – even though it has been on our own willpower that this is so.

We are nuts. We are dishonest. And we are killing people.

It is no wonder that some people leave AA feeling like it has been a CULT experience. IT HAS BEEN! We have allowed what probably began as a small clutch of non-alcoholic, hard drinking, problem drinkers evolve into a glut of alternative solutions masquerading as AA and it is now so top heavy that it has weighed down the entire fellowship to the point were interlopers and generations of non-AA thought has dragged the Fellowship into a throw-back of its former self. We are made out to be a laughing stock.

If only we would do what real alcoholics have to do in order to recover- if we wouldn’t change the words of the Big Book and call it “semantics” as if “semantics” is an excuse to re-write the directions to fit middle-of-the-road solutions more agreeable to addictions counselors and treatment center “for profit” philosophies – their apodictic tone in direct conflict with AA’s Big Book experience. Then we might see some of the Step Ten promises come true.

They have come true and for that I am truly grateful that these 12 promises and of course the 9th step amends promises have become operative in my life.

• And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone – even alcohol.
• For by this time sanity will have returned.
• We will seldom be interested in liquor.
• If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame.
• We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically.
• We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it.
• We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation.
• We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected.
• We have not even sworn off.
• Instead, the problem has been removed.
• It does not exist for us.
• We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.

Not too shabby, huh? This is my experience and these are all delivered every single day, when I maintain my spiritual fitness through the daily 10th step practices prescribed by the first one hundred alcoholics.

So what do you want to do? Do you want and read and quote Emmett Fox – or do you want to recover from alcoholism and show others how to do the same?

Peace,

Danny S

Resting On Laurels Is Hardly Enough

Look at Step Ten. If you think I mean read the summary of Step Ten off the Twelve Steps shades hanging on the wall or what can be gleaned off of page 59 — I do not.

I mean read the directions for taking Step Ten. They are on page 84 followed by some unbelievably wonderful promises to be had as the result.

Now, here’s where some life changing challenges comes in. We begin to see that practicing these principles in all of our affairs is much more than a week or month long spurt of 4th step inventory writing and an afternoon of fifth step talking.

It means changing the way we approach our daily lives – moment by moment and day by day. It takes commitment – a commitment that is not so hard for those of us who have by now felt a miracle and are experiencing a new flow of power into our lives. We have come to believe and making drastic changes is now possible where before it was not. But it can be impossibly difficult for anyone who has not taken the previous steps and consequently begun to have the spiritual experience promised.

People who “take the steps” through AWOL programs or by reading the 12 & 12 may not get the powerful new flow of Gods grace. If they do, it seems short-lived.

There is no continued growth in effectiveness They “wait”. And they “wait”. And they “wait”. And they read. And they read. And they read. And they discuss. And they discuss. And then they argue over what a spiritual awakening is. Attempting to living off of a spiritual experience had years or months ago is not growth. It’s resting on laurels. And for real alcoholics it is deadly.

There are thousands of us out there going to Big Book meetings, and Twelve and Twelve meetings – reading Twelve and Twelve essays, the stories in the back of the Big Book – who are so self centered that we have resorted to turning Dr. O. into a demigod and page 449/417 into a mantra for feeling good. Many of us would rather savor some of the fine insights of someone like Emmet Fox than perform daily Step Ten exercises throughout the day and engage in nightly inventories as prescribed in the Twelve Steps.

We think that we have the AA Program in our lives. And we don’t. And we lie about it to others.

We rubber-stamp our half-assed actions with “to the best of our abilities” and it isn’t. And we are still crazy – still suffering from the slings and arrows that life shoots at us, still have financial fears and worries and are telling newcomers that, “This Program Works” when it is apparently that for many of us it isn’t.

But we have an inspection sticker on the car and a job and so we brag – as if these have been fruit that matters of sobriety. To the newcomer without a sticker, or a car for that matter, this seems an improvement over his own lot – and for a spell we are attractive – until the next first drink hits that newcomer like a freight train hits a stalled car on the track.

Then we tell him, “You must not have really wanted sobriety” or to “Double up on your meetings.”

We are full of shit!

And so we figure it must be some lifelong, never quite get there, hardly noticeable but it must be so experience. Let’s go with spiritual experiences of the educational variety – yeah, that’s the ticket. And then we continue to struggle and fight through life. If we are real alcoholics we will probably relapse and come back – and relapse and come back over and over. If we are not real alcoholics we might stay dry and crazy and figure we must be recoverING because we have been attending all these dammed meetings and haven’t had a drink – even though it has been on our own willpower that this is so.

We are nuts. We are dishonest. And we are killing people.

It is no wonder that some people leave AA feeling like it has been a CULT experience. IT HAS BEEN! We have allowed what probably began as a small clutch of non-alcoholic, hard drinking, problem drinkers evolve into a glut of alternative solutions masquerading as AA and it is now so top heavy that it has weighed down the entire fellowship to the point were interlopers and generations of non-AA thought has dragged the Fellowship into a throw-back of its former self. We are made out to be a laughing stock.

If only we would do what real alcoholics have to do in order to recover- if we wouldn’t change the words of the Big Book and call it “semantics” as if “semantics” is an excuse to re-write the directions to fit middle-of-the-road solutions more agreeable to addictions counselors and treatment center “for profit” philosophies – their apodictic tone in direct conflict with AA’s Big Book experience. Then we might see some of the Step Ten promises come true.

They have come true and for that I am truly grateful that these 12 promises and of course the 9th step amends promises have become operative in my life.

• And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone – even alcohol.
• For by this time sanity will have returned.
• We will seldom be interested in liquor.
• If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame.
• We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically.
• We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it.
• We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation.
• We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected.
• We have not even sworn off.
• Instead, the problem has been removed.
• It does not exist for us.
• We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.

Not too shabby, huh? This is my experience and these are all delivered every single day, when I maintain my spiritual fitness through the daily 10th step practices prescribed by the first one hundred alcoholics.

So what do you want to do? Do you want and read and quote Emmett Fox – or do you want to recover from alcoholism and show others how to do the same?

Peace,

Danny S